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Hi everyone, and welcome to Leaders in Lending. I am
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Lynn Saarbiel, and I'm joining you today from CBA Live
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with Joseph Mainz from Experience. Joseph, do you want to
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talk a little bit about your background and your role
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as chief Economists Experience.
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Yeah, thank you, Lynn, and thank you for having me back.
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So yeah, I'm the chief Economists i Experience North America.
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So just roughly what I do. I spend probably about
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seventy percent of my time doing external work with our
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clients and our partners. Give a lot of presentation speak
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with probably one hundred and twenty organizations a year, all
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across is kind of the financial system ecosystem, from the
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largest banks to fintech's credit unions. I also spend the
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rest of my time I report up to the North
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America Strategy Team, and so I also do a lot
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of work working internally with our strategic finance, our finance team,
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strategy team, thinking about kind of those major pivots in
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the economy that may be material for our business as well.
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Well.
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Great, well, I know we did this conversation last year,
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so it's great to have you have you back on
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the podcast. I think you know heading into into your end,
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felt that the economy was maybe a little more resilient
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than expected and that you know, term recession concerns were
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starting to ease. But now I think we're we're certainly
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seeing some more uncertainty increase, and especially with different things
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going on in the world. So what indicators are you
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watching that could signal shifts as we kind of move
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into twenty twenty five.
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Yeah, so I think there's a couple of things.
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So you're absolutely right when we you know, coming out
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of twenty twenty four, the economy really had had solid momentum.
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You know, overall economic activity was doing really well, labor
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market pretty solid, spending pretty solid. But you know, there
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were some trends and I can talk about them in
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a little bit, there were some trends that gave some
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kind of a heads up that we may be entering
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a little bit of a slower period. And then on
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top of that, then we got hit with all Now
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we have a lot of obviously policy uncertainty coming out
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of DC. Some of that exactly, you know, kind of
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further perpetuate some of the slowing trends that we did see.
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But overall, you're right, solid momentum.
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So what I'm really looking at right now, you know,
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I think there's a couple of ways to think about it.
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So top of mind for me at the moment is
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everything that's going on with trade in tariff policy, and
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so really I think about it as you know, kind
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of affecting two different channels. When you have the kind
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of the inflationary aspect, the impact that it's going to
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have on the FED, I think, you know, we can
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hit on that too, But definitely I think higher tariffs
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are likely to lead to higher prices. One of the
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questions is how long and how persistent you know that
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those price changes may be. But either way, it's probably
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going to cause the FED to be more cautious in
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the short run. But what I'm honestly a little more
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concerned at the moment is kind of the uncertainty that
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this is driving in the broader economy, especially for things
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like business investment and consumer spending. So that's actually a
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segment that I'm a little more concerned about at the
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moment than even the inflationary impacts.
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Yeah, you do you think, you know, going into kind
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of what we're seeing, this persistent inflation and higher for
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longer rates. Do you think the FED has really the
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right tools to kind of balance the growth and stability, Like,
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do they have enough kind of dry powder do influence
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according to their mandate?
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So the FED is stuck.
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They're stuck in a little bit between a rock and
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a hard place at the moment, just because you know,
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and inflation was already proving to be more stubborn than
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they would like to see even coming into the end
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of twenty twenty four, and now you look at the tariffs. Definitely,
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if it doesn't drive inflation, highers at least going to
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keep inflation where it is, which is above the Fed's target.
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I think for longer. I think the FED does have tools.
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Obviously, they have room in the federal funds rate to
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drop it phiry substantially if they if they need to.
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But it's definitely going to be a challenge, and I
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do think that this year they may have to make
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that choice if push comes to shove, what are you
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going to support You're going to try to make sure
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you keep inflation inder control, or you're going to try
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to support the labor market. My personal view is that
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they they'll support the labor market.
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So interesting, Yeah, I think that, you know, the certainly
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policy uncertainty and political changes are having a big impact.
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And I'm a big Twitter fan and write a fan
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as well, and I think everyone's an expert on tariffs
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right now after being experts and other things earlier this year.
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So you know, as you think about building forecasts for
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twenty twenty five, with so much uncertainty happening, and particularly
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like regulatory uncertainty and policy uncertainty, how do you think
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about factoring that into your forecasts of what you are
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projecting in it experience?
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Yeah, so you know, it is very difficult at the
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moment when you look at kind of of the I
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don't think you can just pick out one policy aspect
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at a time when it's just tariffs or immigration or
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spending cuts or you know, tax cuts or deregulation.
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It's really the package deal. But how I am thinking
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about it is you have the short run impacts. So
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you know, we have tariffs, we're.
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Having, you know, shifts in immigration policy, You're having you know,
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federal government layoffs, you have some some spending cutbacks, and
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so I think I think about really in the short
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term those things are very those things way heavy in
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the next six to twelve months, and then I think
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the tax cuts and the the deregulation, those impacts will
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probably come later. So really, when I'm looking at the forecast,
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I'm looking at that tariffs, you know, job cuts, those
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things in the short run, and I think if you
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look at the short run, it's it's clear that it's
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likely going to weigh on growth, likely going to weigh
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on the labor markets.
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And I do think that that's.
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One reason why you know, the market in general, if
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you you know, if you go back to December, the
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FED was projecting two rate cuts this year. I actually
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think that's a pretty good baseline. I know, recently there's
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been kind of a split, you know, some economists saying, oh, look,
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we got it. The Fed's gonna be very focused on
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the inflationary picture because the tariff's going to keep them.
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Cautious for longer.
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We may get one cut, we may get no cuts.
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On the other side of the thing, you look at,
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you know, market pricing of rate cuts this year.
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Now they're up to maybe like three cuts.
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My general view at the moment is if we look
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at that, we think about kind of the near term risks.
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You know, if I were to take a bet whether
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the Fed's going to cut more than twice or less
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than twice. I think they may cut more than twice
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this year, and we can talk about maybe in a
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little bit, but some of the with the weaknesses and
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I think in the labor market that may may be
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showing up more readily for them.
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Yeah, that's definitely. It's going to be an interesting, interesting time.
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And you know, every time I guess is unprecedented. But
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you know, I think the one thing we've seen though
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is consumer spending has remained pretty strong, and even though
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we've seen some dips and consumer confidence, you see spending
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is and reflecting that, Like what do you what do
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you think is driving that? And do you think with
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some of the changes to federal employees, cuts to federal agencies,
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do you think that that's going to then trickle down
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into really how consumers are spending their dollars.
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Yeah, so I think there's a there's a couple of
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things there when I think about the strength of the consumer.
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So I've been generally and when I joined you last time,
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I've been more optimistic over the past couple of years
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than most economists, and that's just because I had you know,
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conviction that the consumer was both able and willing to
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continue to spend. But some of those dynamics that that
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drove me to that conviction have really been kind of
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fading over the past year.
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So one of one of the.
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Biggest drivers, you know, twenty twenty three, early twenty twenty four,
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really strong personal income growth when adjusted for inflation, rising
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at a solid pace. That is really that was really
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sort of spending. What you've really seen over especially the
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back half of twenty twenty four is a softening an
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overall income growth.
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So it's now.
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Running below the average that you saw prior to the pandemic,
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which now gives me some pause that you know how,
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I do think consumers will spend this year, but I
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don't think they'll have the quite as much ability to
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do so.
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But what you did see, though.
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In spite of even having incomes kind of fade a
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little bit into the back of the year, you did
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see spending growth remain very robust, honestly, And I think,
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what so this is kind of the second piece. One
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is that again, like I said, the income I think
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is softening a little more concerned about that. But the
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other piece is you have to think why was it
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that consumers were willing to, even in the face of
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their income growth softening a bit, they kept up spending growth. Actually,
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spending growth really was very solid through twenty twenty four,
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and spending growth.
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Was rising faster than income growth. You can't have that
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happen forever. But the question is why that happen.
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My view, it has very much to do with the
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you know, the net worth impact we've seen over the
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past couple of years. You know, your your home value
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goes up forty percent, your form K goes up forty percent,
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you feel more comfortable spending a.
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Larger portion of your income every month.
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But what we've seen recently, and I think especially since
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the you know, whether you want to call this a
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new trade war and extension of the prior trade war,
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but either way, all this uncertainty, you've definitely seen more
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of an impact. I think the sp five hundred entered
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a correction, and I think you're you're seeing more people
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probably cognizant now, well, maybe those things that have supported
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my spending of the past two years, maybe they're not
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doing so well. Maybe I may be cut back a
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little more now.
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Yeah, I think that's probably a good a good point
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that if you if you think you're going to make
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more next year, and if you keep seeing your investment
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balances go up, you may feel a little more confident,
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like yes I'll book that trip, Yes I'll buy that thing,
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Yes I'll start this home improvement project. So you know,
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as you think about then how that relates to lending,
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the credit environment, credit markets. I think we may have
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talked last year a little bit about real estate, and
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you know, rates had been super low for so long,
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and so this idea that people weren't going to, you know, move,
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you're not going to sell and walk away from a
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three percent or two percent mortgage, and that people were
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going to do more home improvements. And so now that
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rates have increased rather substantially and seemed to be pretty
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sticky both on the on the mortgage side, where do
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you see the opportunities maybe for lending or the credit markets,
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or what may be the kind of products or asset
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classes that are coming into favor in the current environment.
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Yeah, I think it's kind of interesting because, like we
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mentioned earlier, like the economy really came into twenty twenty
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five in a good place, and I think you can
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generally say that as well when looking at the credit environment.
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So you know you had seen really over the past
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since you know, late twenty twenty two, lending standards has
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tightened very substantially. Interest rates were high, but coming into
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the back end of twenty twenty four, you know, lending
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sentans were generally, at least for banks and the broader
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market were still tighting, but not tightly nearly.
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At the pace.
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And you did see some You did see some loosening,
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you know, large banks loosening, and autos you sell some
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loosening helocks. And I think what you can see like
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the pickup in lending and FinTechs. You know, we don't
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have an exact measure of linding standard tightness for FinTechs
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like we do with banks when the Senior Loan Off
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Survey comes out, but fintech's generally tightened lending standards earlier.
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I think maybe got a head of some of their
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delinquencies earlier. I mean I was listening to you, like